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Julian Assange: "Online Totalitarianism Is Near, Entire Nations Are Intercepted"
dryriver writes "Russia Today's correspondents have visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where Assange has been holed up for nearly 6 months now. In the 12 minute long interview with RT, Assange has many interesting things to say about privacy, and government data interception in particular. A small excerpt: 'The people who control the interception of the Internet and, to some degree also, physically control the big data warehouses and the international fiber-optic lines. We all think of the Internet as some kind of Platonic Realm where we can throw out ideas and communications and web pages and books and they exist somewhere out there. Actually, they exist on web servers in New York or Nairobi or Beijing, and information comes to us through satellite connections or through fiber-optic cables. So whoever physically controls this controls the realm of our ideas and communications. And whoever is able to sit on those communications channels, can intercept entire nations, and that's the new game in town, as far as state spying is concerned — intercepting entire nations, not individuals. ... So what's happened over the last 10 years is the ever-decreasing cost of intercepting each individual now to the degree where it is cheaper to intercept every individual rather that it is to pick particular people to spy upon.'"
RT knows all about freedom of press, hm?
Ceci n'est pas une
it spies on everyone
but Russia Today? seriously?
there's no sincerity here
just Russia sniffing out that they can use this issue as a political football
Russia's track record shows that it clearly stands far less for the principles Assange talks about than the West
but this won't stop Russia using Assange as a club against the West
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Here is an interesting bit from the article about what Julian thinks we should actually do and what will happen if don't do it:
"So this is where we are at now, which is we've got to create education amongst people, so there can be a market demand, so that others can be encouraged to produce easy-to-use cryptographic technology that is capable of protecting not everyone, but a significant number of people from mass state spying. And if we are not able to protect a significant number of people from mass state spying, then the basic democratic and civilian institutions that we are used to – not in the West, I am no glorifier of the West, but in all societies – are going to crumble away. They will crumble away, and they will do so all at once. And that's an extremely dangerous phenomenon."
I like this idea a lot, and wonder how this could occur.. But I am more interested in the answer to the question of... How much is being stuck in a building for 6 months affecting Julian psychologically?
2 Good reasons: first, because he is a world class attention whore, which means that when he says something, it's news and it's being listened to. Second, because it is not elementary to many. I think few people out there know of the scope and capabilities of current and upcoming surveillance technology.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Imagine they had a backup, fine. Who gets access to the data? I can't even find my own files and people forget what we discussed on a mailing list. It is wrong to keep people in fear. And it is wrong to keep company with RT.
So what if they're snooping on entire nations.
After all, if nobody in a nation is doing anything wrong, then that nation has got nothing to worry about.
Is now an arboretic cage. . Chop it down. Break it up. Do something new. .
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
As the Cypherpunks have been saying for maybe 20 years now: Use encryption. Not just SSL when you buy something online, but for everything. Heck, we should all be running IPSec. But it's not going anywhere because we don't understand interception and think it doesn't happen to us.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
... have come forward and discussed dragnet unconstitutional surveillance that they were personally involved with. Remember Tice?
But everyone was worried about the latest Linux build, who is suing who, or Kim Kardashian's ass...
I don't know about all that. If you asked my parents, who can barely send email, if the internet is truly anonymous and outside the grasp of various nations' surveillance, they'd laugh at the question.
It seems more likely that we regularly submit, read, and comment on these things because it's our way of bitching about it. Which I suppose is reason enough on its own.
You gravely overestimate the knowledge levels of the average internet user.
Let's send a message to those state spies. Maybe if we all download the filthiest pornography we can find and....
Oh. I see.
Never mind.
Your parents may not understand how to use that technology, but they understand its implications as they saw the world change as it became widely used. Children and teenagers growing up around this stuff though that just take it for granted? They don't have a fucking clue.
While I agree with your comment, I think the bias here is blatantly obvious -- it is a state-funded TV station launched in 2005.
Russians also have been critical of RT. Former KGB officer Konstantin Preobrazhensky criticized RT as "a part of the Russian industry of misinformation and manipulation".[104] Andrey Illarionov, former advisor to Vladimir Putin, has labeled the channel as “the best Russian propaganda machine targeted at the outside world.”[66]
James Kirchick in The New Republic accused the network of "often virulent anti-Americanism, worshipful portrayal of Russian leaders."[105] Ed Lucas wrote in Al Jazeera that the core of RT was "anti-Westernism."[106] Shaun Walker wrote in The Independent that RT "has made a name for itself as a strident critic of US policy."[107] Allesandra Stanley in The New York Times wrote that RT is "like the Voice of America, only with more money and a zesty anti-American slant."[46] David Weigel writes that RT goes further than merely creating distrust of the United States government, to saying, in effect: "You can trust the Russians more than you can trust those bastards."[29]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_%28TV_network%29#Objectivity
So let's be real about the motive. This isnt just normal "people" bias, this is state-funded propaganda. Doesn't make it wrong, and again I agree it is worth looking at, but not just with a grain of salt.
Absolutely!
A lot of laymen that I talked to about ECHELON think that I am some kind of crazy conspiracy theorist even though it is very well documented. Even in a report to the European Parliament. Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
And the somewhat smarter people obviously know that nothing on the internet is untraceable, though you can make it really hard, but they do not realize and/or accept that it is commonplace to intercept, datamine and record all online communications. And that it is kept till the end of days. Sadly enough datastorage is just that cheap these days.
Now the question arises will that information harm you now, in one year, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years...
The best response that I've heard to people saying that they have nothing to hide: Just tell them to give you all their passwords, to their Mail Account, Facebook, Dropbox, etc. If they argue that they do not trust YOU, tell them to send it in an envelope to the FBI, NSA, etc.
There is no real way to regulate it without utterly ruining it, and even that is nearly impossible.
You must have missed the memo. The plan is to turn this "internet" thing into an updated version of the home shopping network. Anyone else will be quickly identified as a "hacker." The ways to regulate it aren't really by regulation -- this will occur by "closed garden" computing systems, closely monitored privately owned and run networks, and the steady attack on pesky "eccentrics" (stallman, etc) who insist on silly freedoms via software and hardware.
General computing tools and dumb pipes are bad for business.
If it's properly encrypted, they can arrest you for being a terrorist and play Justin Bieber at you until you give them the password
Fixed for you. The Internet is only a technological solution as far as the endpoints, which are delicious and chewy humans.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
So whoever physically controls this controls the realm of our ideas and communications. And whoever is able to sit on those communications channels, can intercept entire nations,
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
Projects like Tor are popular in nations which are invasive in monitoring and blocking. They're not popular in countries which don't, because they're perceived as not being necessary. It won't take long for that to change if governments start stamping their boots.
Remember when Gmail and a lot of other services didn't use SSL by default (or in some cases, at all)? Now, it's practically unthinkable - in part because companies like Google and Twitter and Facebook want people to be able to use their services safely if they need to. They've recognized the power to do good that their services have.
Hell, these days you can't even detect what people are googling for by snooping on their traffic.
(sad to see that slashdot still doesn't support SSL.)
Please help metamoderate.
Geeks are to blame for most of the loss of human rights on the net.
We write so much software that other geeks use, but can't seem to get a handle on ease-of-use or taking action.
If Thunderbird incorporated the equivalent of Enigmail from the start, lots of people would be using it now. The extra security would be a selling point, causing other applications to compensate by becoming compatible. Over time, every E-mail client would have been secure, some committee would have come up with a standard, and that would be the end of it.
If linux had encryption built into the OS (what are the functions of an OS anyway, if not to manage such things?) so that secure sockets were trivially available, the same thing would happen for other protocols.
Instead, we leave it as an exercise for the user. The user has to know that they want security, then know where and how to get it, then learn how to use it, then convince other people how to do the same. We leave encryption as an exercise to the coder, an add-on to be implemented in every new application.
We have a "reply to all" button, why can't we have a "make private if the recipient has encryption" button?
This sort of mass surveillance can only happen when the surveillance is easy. Why don't we just make it hard?
Instead of wailing and gnashing of teeth, how about we actually solve the problem?
Nota Bene: Yes, there are issues to be resolved, none of which are very difficult. No, perfect security is not attainable, but "good enough" security will help a lot. And no, none of the problems that come to mind are insurmountable.
Politicians put people's lives in danger on a daily basis for political and personal gain, are you going to say the same for them?
"...first, because he is a world class attention whore"
So fucking what? We NEED an attention whore in that position--anything less will be ignored.
Since the day I discovered, many years ago, that AT&T had let the Feds install what amounts to a listening station on their backbone, I've assumed that the Feds are listening to everything. That being said, when it comes to fighting this madness, what have YOU done?
Don't knock Assange unless you've got a better plan, hotshot.
Julian's points about the power of big data resonates with me, since I work in and teach data warehousing. I show clients how to amass and structure massive amounts of data and datamine it so that they can identify customers who meet specific criteria, such as those who are more likely to buy beer, or who may be more likely to make insurance claims.
With Julian's insight, I can now see how, by storing the data of each web search, each facebook posting, each email, and each blip of a person's GPS, governments could identify (or think they identify) insurgents, rebels and general troublemakers even while they are only thinking of doing something, before they commit any crime. And I see no technical reason why this could not and is not being done currently, even in real-time. The irony is that the US was formed by rebels and insurgents, and now the US, with their ability to collect and mind this massive amount of data, would be in a position to be able to squash nascent insurgencies before they even occurred. It seems expeditious, and tempting. And so what if a few innocent people get swept up and go missing along with the "baddies?" Isn't the world better off as a whole? I can see the entire terrifying slippery-slope now. But maybe it hasn't yet occurred. We don't really know.
But Julian's point is that there is tipping point that can occur, and in fact, -will- occur, simply by collecting so much data and mining it, the system is already set up. Someone with access to those systems, and with enough legitimate power, would just have to create a different query, and then it all begins, and slowly slides down the slope with more and more queries targeting more and more key people, finding ways to "take them out" with their own weaknesses. Hence, this "turn-key" system is already in place, just waiting for the most basic of human characteristics: weakness and greed, to come along and turn the key and use it for one man's gain. Why not? If you saw a way to control the entire world, and it was just sitting there, silently, waiting for you to use it, wouldn't you be tempted?
One ring to rule them all...
Sent from my ENIAC
It's not just the knowledge levels, it's also the care factor.
Concerned Citizen: The government is tracking your activities on that site!
Internet User: How dare they?!
Webmaster: But there's kittens!
Internet User: OMG! So cute!
After 9/11 there was a telecom lawsuit of spying on Americans dismissed by the courts. The reason was said to have been looking for terrorist which was not technically possible, but what was possible was the monitoring of american attitudes and this spying coupled with controlled proproganda of the mainstream media provided a feedback loop for manipulating the american people.
This feedback loop process is still going on, being used.
The opportunity here is for an increasing number of Americans to become aware of this and to make use of what they want to communicate to those running teh feedback spying loop. Its an opportunity to educate the paranoid psychopathic authoritarians of the problem they face with their illness and as such proceed to nullify the damage those spying are causing in the propaganda they create based on the feedback loop.
The alternative is to run and hide and that is not going to solve anything, its not going to help anyone but those with mental illness to continue to believe their self supporting dependencies, their self fulfilling prophecy.
Time to make use of the opportunity! .
You might be right... they do have historical context, having lived through the cold war and all.
But then do we keep revisiting this (otherwise very obvious) thing for the benefit of those very, very naive children and teens? I think most people just don't care, and we do it because we want to vent.
Your parents may not understand how to use that technology, but they understand its implications as they saw the world change as it became widely used.
There are some things that they get, sure, but most of the information retrieval that people see is or seems unstructured. E.g. google. They have no idea that you could do something like (in pseudo SQL)
Select emailer.name, emailer.id, friend.name, friend.id, email.body_subject, email.id, friend.sedition_rating, from emails, people as emailer, people as friend, friendship where friend.id = friendship.a_id and friendship.b_id = $target_person, and email.body_subject in (select subject from email_subjects where subject_area = "political" or subject_area = "fishing" );
and get a complete list of emails sent to your friends on political subjects and fishing (where they know you sometimes meet your political contacts) in order to start guessing who else might be worth picking up and interrogating to find out more about your own political activities. The old people think of email as something like faster/instant letters. They definitely don't understand the implications of the structured data included and the ease of feeding such data into databases.
In many ways, the "little bit of knowledge" is much more dangerous than no knowledge. The whole "I've got nothing to hide" comes from not understanding that what you wanted to hide might be something that you didn't even know about yourself. E.g. that two of your friends are doing something secret that you would want to support if you knew about it but wouldn't want the government to know about.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Yes, eliminating a delay in the inevitable (since "his guilt is already confirmed") is TOTALLY worth betraying one of the most important precepts of the rule of law which untold millions of people have died to uphold around the world.
You sad, myopic, fucking moron.
I can't even count the number of Site to Site VPNs I've set up. Plenty of the routine internet traffic IS constantly encrypted. Sure, it's breakable. But you have a hard time guessing which is two employees emailing LOLcat pictures and which is Super Important Corporate documents.
Just like corporate networks. While yes, security is not as great as I'd or any sane person would prefer... It's getting slowly better. Virtually every executive I have spoken to understands that "security stuff" is a requirement, like lights or water. They don't understand the particulars, but they get the general purpose and understand the need to do more than the bare minimum. Security devices are generally becoming more friendly to use, easier to configure and occasionally lower in price. Operating systems are getting better as well.
With the huge diversity of environments, good luck trying to control them all. And good luck shutting them down.
There is nothing new under the sun. Ever read "The Puzzle Palace"? http://m.cdn.blog.hu/hi/hirszerzes/file/James%20Bamford%20-%20The%20Puzzle%20Palace%20-%20Inside%20The%20National%20Security%20Agency.pdf
Fight however can mean a lot of things but first of all it means strategy. Sun Tzu said that the epitome of excellence in warfare is to win the war without fighting a single battle. Barring that be smart. Forget what you learned from movies. Remember what you learned from playing Go. At the signing of the Vietnam Peace Treaty in Paris, essentially a surrender, an American general confronted a Vietnamese General and said "You never defeated us in battle!" The Vietnamese General replied 'That's irrelevant now isn't it?"
I think we ought to introduce classes in school that focus specifically on online security, seeing as so much of our lives are now spent online and archived in The Cloud. Mind you, this might be horseshit as for all I know they already exist.
In fact, you just did. With the ol' chestnut of many an apologist by saying: "Well, look at THOSE guys. Over there. They're MUCH worse than me." The unfinished part: "So what *I'M* doing should be OK by you."
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
That's America. A nation led and bred to love their government because we all know that's the patriotic thing to do. How do you explain to people the power of deep data and the enormous capacity to mine data for information. If Google can create a unique interest profile for one person from billions, and target that person for services and commerce, what can your Government do having trapped every bit that flows through its sphere of power. Moreover, What the Government hasn't got on you, it buys from the SuperMarkets and Search Engines you frequent. How many endless megabytes of data must exist for each person in this country. You'd have to live in a cave or be Amish to escape with your identity intact.
So I am grateful to Julian, and I'm happy to have him shout this from every mountain top. If he get's stiff nipples over getting the public spotlight, small price to pay. Of all the personality flaws I can think of, being a showboat is probably one of the least detrimental. Anyway, I wasn't looking to marry the guy. Just have him ream the government folks doing dirty deeds in the dark of night.
I've watched Russia Today on a number of occasions and Aljazeera -- frequently, as well as Fox, Cnn, MSNB, AND listened to Boortz, Limbaugh, Hannity, The Young Turks, NPR, BBC, ad nauseum. Have you?
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
I think we should have a class in fifth grade called "The Truth about History." It should start out most of what you hear is a lie. Because its one persons perspective and that view is going to be seen through the filter of that time, its society, politics, religion and social beliefs. So its a lie, less in most case by commission than omission and must be so as a personal expression. In fact truly great historians who have done truly brilliant works purely out of the belief that getting the unadulterated truth was more important than reporting on their point of view.
It should teach our children, its up to them to find the "True, true" (to paraphrase Cloud Atlas), and that starts with discovering that our Founding Fathers seriously looked at Anarchy because governments in general offended their sensibilities and rightfully so. Letting them know what a endless bunch of pigs and douchebags most of our nations representatives have been. Which is why its so remarkable when a true statesman arrives. Lincoln did so many things wrong, and he did so many things right. It would be interesting to see what might have happened to this country if Lincoln might have lived to bind up the Nations wounds. It might have been interesting if Kennedy had lived to pull us out of VietNam (he'd already made it clear to his brother Bobby that VietNam was another Korea without the interesting barbeque, and he was going to pull the American advisers out.) Its time we taught our children the truth, but also inspired them to appreciate, their actions are the history for tomorrows children and it will be their courage and genius that will make all the difference. We could use some of that right now.
Its so much worse than that. They have deep informatics tools that don't even require that you ever said a word online that made anyone question your patriotism. All you have to do is visit the right sights, engage in conversations in the right places, buy the right books or talk to the right people and you might as well be burning he flag in Central Park. because the CIA will be up in your schist so fast you will get bowel lock. The power of looking for common informatics among certain social groups mean that you could get clumped with any number of very bad people just for having network habits that make your Government think they have something to worry about you.
[Citation Needed]
All I can find (and information even on this is patchy) suggests a single man who may have given Belarus uncensored documents.
You'd need to go a long way to prove "openly works with", let alone "is a neo Stalinist front".
Last post!
First thing... try looser panties, clearly the ones you have on must be chafing.
Next Your sentence seems somewhat unclear, again probably due to that chafing problem. So just for clarity sake, are you saying You want Mr. Assange tried as a criminal or not. I ask because you imply he's a guilty criminal and the rule of law is a noble thing defended by the blood of untold millions while in the same breath saying betraying that is TOTALLY worthwhile.
So I would simply add, assuming that you want to pop Mr. Assange like a pimple, whistle blowers need to be protected, supported and held in the highest of esteem. Our government perpetrates atrocities at the drop of a tiny hat, and unless we open up the closed doors and closed emails to public scrutiny, that government get's away with it heinous acts with impunity. I would trade national secrets for government transparency in a femtosecond. The citizens of this country have a right to know what crimes it government perpetrated on their behalf. We need to hold out leaders to that very same rule of law. So if on the other hand you are saying that its is worthwhile to betray this moments rule of law for the greater good of government transparency to better honor the rule of law on a global scale, then I whole hearterly agree.
" I would trade national secrets for government transparency in a femtosecond." "I am an idiot" is a much shorter way of putting that.
Don't forget. In his book he claims he's a cypherpunk founder. Yes. He's just that awesome. Why I heard he invented cryptography too.
Python
Because it's not "elementary" enough. Not nearly.
No matter what you think of Assange, he's not an idiot, and he's absolutely correct in this case.
Except...if you see the danger as a phenomenon of nations and governments, you miss the fact that the alpha and omega of the control of information is corporate. It does no good to be vigilant against government encroachments and not notice the engorged throbbing anal probe that we willingly accept from private industry. Because one thing you can say about every government, everywhere, regardless of political system: they're all corporate takeover targets. And your life, your information, your labor, your wealth - your very mind - are nothing more than inventory. For the ownership class, it's eat or be eaten, and we are the consumables.
You are welcome on my lawn.
oh that's a ripe pile
if someone isn't on the agenda of attack the usa first, ignore all other players in the world, they must be an asskissing american apologist
the usa leads the world on a whole number of vile evil wrongs
did you read that? i will repeat if your cranium is too thick:
the usa leads the world on a whole number of vile evil wrongs
i. just. wrote. those. words.
are we clear?
however, the subject of the free flow of information, assange's core concern, is NOT one of the issues the usa is doing badly in. in fact, it's by far one of the cleaner countries in the world on that subject matter, most definitely including as compared to a country like russia
i'm sorry if a little simple intellectually honesty is so glaring to you. if facts don't jibe with your political agenda, then reality must have a political agenda against you, right? because i don't know how else to process your desperate smear on my motivation here
i have some advice to you:
if you attack the usa on the actual subject matters in which it actually does wrong in the world (AND THERE ARE PLENTY OF THEM), rather than trying to twist every damn subject matter into an attack-the-usa rodeo, you might find that you have more traction with people who wish to take you seriously, but currently cannot
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Because only terrorists try to hide from the government. That is how the government thinks.
... have come forward and discussed dragnet unconstitutional surveillance that they were personally involved with. Remember Tice?
But everyone was worried about the latest Linux build, who is suing who, or Kim Kardashian's ass...
The NSA wants to monitor the internet to secure the USA and the world. It has to be done as the threat of terrorism and the amount of wars combined with the shitty economy and excessive radicalization of the USA and extremism around the globe, it's not an option to allow individuals to keep secrets from the government. The question is how can we give the government all our secrets without fear of being arrested or having the information abused or leaked?
Fight however can mean a lot of things but first of all it means strategy. Sun Tzu said that the epitome of excellence in warfare is to win the war without fighting a single battle. Barring that be smart. Forget what you learned from movies. Remember what you learned from playing Go. At the signing of the Vietnam Peace Treaty in Paris, essentially a surrender, an American general confronted a Vietnamese General and said "You never defeated us in battle!" The Vietnamese General replied 'That's irrelevant now isn't it?"
While we all have a right to be free the only way to maintain that freedom is to have a world with no individual secrecy. Governments should know all our individual secrets and keep our collective secrets confidential.
The problem with governments is they leak secrets. They leak secrets because of Wikileaks founders like Julian Assange.
I think you forgot the bit explaining why the average citizen should care? I used to work for the govt, and I used to work for some ISP, so I think I have a handle on what's probably going on but still don't really care. So I read some news websites, watch porn, download music and talk shit to a bunch of people I've hardly met. Let's assume the absolutely worst and that the govt knows every movement and every word I've ever spoken, how is this bad for me? (and try to answer this without using some science fiction as your supporting evidence)
How can there be secret wars if there is no secrecy?
Our grandparents would've thought our outlook is crazy, we think our grandkids outlook is crazy. Doesn't mean the world is ending, it's just how it works
David Brin often discusses the solution to this on his blog: Watch the watchers. http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2012/11/is-law-enforcement-going-dark-dilberts.html?m=1
-- Who am I? How did I get here? My God, what have I done?!
Absolutely!
A lot of laymen that I talked to about ECHELON think that I am some kind of crazy conspiracy theorist even though it is very well documented. Even in a report to the European Parliament. Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
And the somewhat smarter people obviously know that nothing on the internet is untraceable, though you can make it really hard, but they do not realize and/or accept that it is commonplace to intercept, datamine and record all online communications. And that it is kept till the end of days. Sadly enough datastorage is just that cheap these days.
Now the question arises will that information harm you now, in one year, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years...
The best response that I've heard to people saying that they have nothing to hide: Just tell them to give you all their passwords, to their Mail Account, Facebook, Dropbox, etc. If they argue that they do not trust YOU, tell them to send it in an envelope to the FBI, NSA, etc.
We should keep that information away from the police and do what we can to keep that information secret. The government might have legit reasons to have our secrets but at the same time they have to be kept from exploiting our secrets in their political pursuits, the pursuit of justice, or anything other than national security.
Now that we know that information is intercepted and analyzed.
Remember how in "Good Wife" they discovered that the company network was being eavesdropped electronically by one partner?
Does it come with a free frogurt?
Julian's problems epitomize the fact that NO ONE is secure in his home and person any longer. Julian's conduct offended those in power, primarily in the United States, and those in power have reached out to touch Julian.
It seems rather preposterous to me, that any "sexual misconduct" less serious than rape or child molestation merits an international crime case and extradition. And, the women involved in this scandal have BOTH stated quite clearly that Julian did NOT rape them. In fact, both women seduced Julian.
Sexual misconduct? The women wanted him, they got him, then they complain? Hello, World - there's something more to this "scandal" than meets the eye.
Behind the scenes politics? Yes? No? It will never be proven unless one of the conspirators admits to it, or disposes of a hard drive with sensitive data on it. But, a person has to be a fool to dismiss political motivation for Julian's legal problems, out of hand.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
One thing is when the government figures out the way you're likely to vote and if they don't like it they throw a screw into your voting right. This also goes for the opposition party as well who also has access to buying data that private companies have collected.
Here in Canada, the last election may have been thrown just by phoning up supporters of the opposition and redirecting them to the wrong polling place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
>But you have a hard time guessing which is two employees emailing LOLcat pictures and which is Super Important Corporate documents.
Doesn't matter; one subpoena and the email servers, backups, and decryption keys will be turned over to the authorities. Or a replacement endpoint will be inserted with genuinely signed certificates, under court order, to tap into the connection.
Now do you begin to understand? Anything that passes through corporate owned infrastructure or exists in a decrypted state on corporate owned servers is accesible to a government.
Since the allegations he's wanted for questioning about are NOT "less serious than rape" - they do, in fact, include "rape" by any reasonable definition of the term - may we conclude that you think his alleged rape DOES merit an international crime case and extradition?
Got a credible source for that bit of information? (note, "justice4assange.com" is not a credible source) I keep asking for it every time I see this idiotic meme, and not a single motherfucking one of you lot has been able to provide one.
If you don't even know which agencies are the ones responsible for domestic network surveillance, how can you possibly claim to know how it works or anything else, like the results?
Obviously if you think it is the CIA that responds, then since you've never heard any credible report of the CIA messing with Americans in the US, then instead of thinking that going to the wrong site gets a CIA response, you'd logically believe it to be rare on unheard of.
It is a nice thing to remain aware of, in broad sci-fi type of terms, but that is very different than having identified it as an actual problem in the real life USA. And if it was a problem, since you care about it, you'd have even heard about which agencies are involved.
There is no reason to think that because consumer data storage is cheap, that that means you could archive the whole internet, not just once but over and over recording what everybody does, and stored forever. That is just nuts.
Obviously, everything you do is only recorded for a limited time, and only activity that meets some sort of flagging criteria is kept forever.
I would say no, Assange is clearly an idiot, whatever else you think of him. He's hiding in a small room to avoid being extradited for questioning on dubious allegations that he is unlikely to ever be charged with, much less convicted. He's doing this on the fear that he would then be extradited to the US, a country that not only hasn't charged him with anything, but is not seriously investigating any alleged crimes by him. And indeed, his role in all of it is a protected role in the US, and both the New York Times and The Register also published the same information as him. This is complete protection in the US system. Yes, US officials who are not part of any investigation have opined they'd love to see him charged... with something. And just based on these weak, unclear threats, he's hiding in a little room.
There are lots of problems with the US legal system. But in certain ways it works very well. And as far as journalists being protected from government harassment, it work very well. It is also very difficult to get political convictions. It is just not a serious threat in the US. As long as he doesn't do something extra-stupid, like travel to a war zone and get captured by uniformed forces while himself being without a uniform.
I think is funny, even though I'm generally sympathetic to his situation; they've managed to trap him like a rat just with non-specific wishing that he be locked away somewhere. They can't lock him up, so they goaded him into locking himself up!
"Attention whore" = He managed to get attention without sucking up to any of the official arbiters of who deserves attention or not.
It's such a predictable smear, playing on the jealousy of people like you (who can't command any attention) and people like journalists (who can command attention, but sold out in order to get the privilege).
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Incompetence Protects Freedom. Nice try, Mr INSCOM.
The truth is that they will visit you personally if you think you can *really* exercise Free Speech. They won't use the techniques of the KGB, but they will definitely try verbal and visual intimidation. Smart people then lie low until they have disappeared. Others will be shocked by the lies and half-truths they spread about them.
Maybe they are not omnipotent, but definitely they will notice if you verbally piss at the feet of $government. The only difference being that in the west there is police who will investigate violence and murder, so they stop short of that. But expect serious amounts of psyop crap. THAT is freedom, boy.
Is that all you've got?
They have poliece around the clock at the embassy to get him should he try to leave the building. UKgov got and order from UKUSAgov to arrest assange at all cost under the threat of "damaging the special relationship". So UKgov bends over.
As soon as he is in Sweden, that government will be pressured the same way (they also have sort of a "special relationship" and they are even weaker than UKgov. Intel and fighter hardware for starters).
His fears are very real and both the UK and Sweden are the whores of a rotten* system of government, namely Washington.
*Torture, indefinite jailing etc.
That's all fine. Until it's not.
Today the worst thing I can see happening due to my footprint is due to commercial interests, not the government.
At worst, I'd like to keep it that way.
You want to wait until after we have a nasty problem before doing at least due diligence?
I agree, I highly doubt porn, youtube and netflix are stored indefinitely. Think IM and email... what matters can be stored for a very long time. If google and facebook can do it, so the feds.
Tomorrow is another day...
You do realise the bulk of "National Secrets" are secrets explicetely to keep it out of reach of american public. When your government fight a secret war, people getting bombed are aware of it. Also, paranoia dont do good for long term international relationships.
Tomorrow is another day...
Everything Assange does is now easier to do if you are in the government? This is an obvious deflection on his part.... "hey look pay no attention to how I violate privacy of others communications.. look at how the government could theoretically violate YOUR privacy of communication".
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
> "They can't lock him up, so they goaded him into locking himself up!" Except for the little fact that he isn't cut off the internet which he certainly would be in US custody. duh.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Well said
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
2 Good reasons: first, because he is a world class attention whore, ... who actually calls himself "Julian ASSange". If he wants my attention, he'll get a real name.
Just because someone else has it worse is no excuse.
All that does is lower the bar for what is proper.
Complacency and all that jazz.
Sure, they have been capturing everything for a very very long time. Even before the internet was running, they were listening in on all phone conversations. There is not enough analytical power to make use of it. The danger comes in when they are targeting you but you can spout off on all sorts of shit before then and it will not trigger anything.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Governments should know everything but we know nothing. That is the most dystopian thing I've ever heard. Over the entrance to the CIA are the words from the Bible "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free". Maybe the government can keep a few secrets, such as how to make a nuclear weapon, but as little as possible should be secret within the government. On the other hand the government needs to go before a judge and present really good goddamn reason why they should know anything at all about me. I have nothing to hide but that's beside the point. You really piss me off, Mr. Police State. Your buddies Hitler and Stalin have croaked. I bet you feel real lonely without them.
Governments should know everything but we know nothing. That is the most dystopian thing I've ever heard. Over the entrance to the CIA are the words from the Bible "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free". Maybe the government can keep a few secrets, such as how to make a nuclear weapon, but as little as possible should be secret within the government. On the other hand the government needs to go before a judge and present really good goddamn reason why they should know anything at all about me. I have nothing to hide but that's beside the point. You really piss me off, Mr. Police State. Your buddies Hitler and Stalin have croaked. I bet you feel real lonely without them.
The government has to know everything about everyone to protect everyone from everyone. Anyone could be made into a terrorist at any time. Anyone could become a radical. Anyone could snap and try to kill someone important. For that reason everyone has to be known because anyone who has secrets could be plotting something bad.
It's better to just give the government your secrets or accept their right to know them. The only problem I have is with leaks. If they know ever immoral or stupid or illegal thing you've done but agree to keep it secret what is the problem?
R U addressing *I*? Pi$$ off. Amateur...
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
PS: Here's a quarter. Get yourself a real grammer-checker.
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
Oh, GREAT!... Here I take the good time and trouble to call someone a pinhead for their spelling/grammar/proof-reading abilities, and for WHAT?!? So I can f$ck it all up, MYSELF!
http://www.beedictionary.com/common-errors/grammer_vs_grammar
That'd be grammAR checker... Pinhead.
Here endeth the rant.
Vote Quimby.
http://milobloom.tumblr.com/post/35829454814/its-not-me-its-you-or-the-rights-attempt-to
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.